


Broken Ambition

by pechekeen



Series: Wavelengths [2]
Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Artist Timmy, M/M, Podcast / voice actor Armie, Slow Burn, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-04-24
Packaged: 2019-04-27 03:05:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14416311
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pechekeen/pseuds/pechekeen
Summary: We know Timothée's side of things but what the heck is up with Armie?





	Broken Ambition

**Author's Note:**

> wow i literally said that i wasn't going to work on this series for another few days after the first chapter _but here we are._
> 
> also, did i ever mention that i love writing angst? because i do but i've been a little worn down / paused it for a little while but now i think i'm getting back into it!
> 
> also also, thank you [@royalworldtraveler](http://royalworldtraveler.tumblr.com/) for BETAing this chapter and letting me yell about how confusing my thought process is!

Armie tugged in the lapels of his cardingan as a strong gust of wind blew through. He shivered from the chill that raced through his body, but he stayed right where he was. The flurry of anger still resided inside and there was nothing to go back to in the apartment, only empty rooms that carried a layer of unsettling resentment- misguided resentment.

The bricks pressing up against the sides of his forearms and hands were cold. Hell, everything felt cold to him. His cigarette didn't offer him any warmth. It just contained nicotine and smoke; both of which hardly did anything for him right now. Armie had felt so inflated from the inside out for days. He new something like this was going to happen, but it didn't make the situation any easier to stomach. Elizabeth had still stormed out the front while he did the same towards the back.

God, was he fucked.

He wasn't sure how much longer he could take this.

There wasn't an easy way to describe how it all happened, because everything had been so _perfect_ before it all went to complete and utter _shit._ Armie had his whole life planned out from the beginning. His parents did their absolute damnedest to have him succeed in life, and he sure as hell had the ambition to do just that. He went to college, got his degree, went back for a masters, got _that_ as well, and then, he met _her_. The second he saw Elizabeth, he _knew_ he had to have her. It didn't matter if she had been dating someone at the time. He _had_ to have her.

He bent over backwards, dressed to impress, and knocked just about anyone off their feet with unfaltering love for her. It was young love, somewhat naive, but everything he wanted. Their friendship grew for two years before he nosed his way in even further. They couldn't just be friends, they just _couldn't_ , and as the stars aligned, they started dating in 2008 and married in 2010. Armie swore he was the luckiest man on earth. He was making good progress up the corporate ladder, now with a stunning wife, and had enough approval from his parents to run off of for a good while. So, just how in the world had all of that gone wrong?

There wasn't an exact moment where everything broke. He couldn't sift through his memories, pick one out and go _'Ah, yes. See, this was the exact moment everything went to complete shit!'_. Things would've been so much easier if that had been the case, but time proved to be one hell of an anomaly. He suddenly couldn't do it anymore.

Do _what_ exactly, one might ask? Well, the simple answer was to just exist, because that's what he had been doing for the majority of his life. Armie shifted and molded himself to fit into the images others provided until he was successful enough to give himself more breathing room. Once he achieved that, he realized that all of the glory he got lacked all of its luster. The daily grind of his job had been tolerable, more than just tolerable actually, but the drag of it caught up to him by the back of his hair and dragged him lower and lower. It took a toll on him, kept him up at night with questions he didn't have the answer for.

Then, there was his marriage. People fall in love all the time. It's just a natural way of living. But how does one explain how they fall _out_ of love? How does one explain that things just dulled down and lost their original vigor? People get divorced because of some deep seated issue, some rigid trauma that dug in too deep, an extreme disagreement, unfaithfulness, or just the simple lack of trust that splinters the relationship beyond repair. They don't get divorced because one party had simply 'fallen out of love' with the other. It sounded so mediocre- almost _cowardly_ in a sense, but that's exactly what happened to him.  
That intense, soul capturing flame of passion he had once held for Elizabeth had been all but extinguished. He had fought tooth and nail to keep his feelings afloat, but there was nothing to try and rekindle once those embers had gone out. He loved her as a friend, and knew he always would, but the love he once had for being more than friends slipped past his fingers. And it never came back. He had fallen too fast, too deep, too _everything_. Once the years wore on, he didn't feel that chemistry in any fiber of his body. In all honesty, he had only felt a shred of it at the beginning of their relationship. And, being as young as he was, he went with it. Armie took that fragment and dove right in without any thought or care about the future, because he had been at the top of the world and absolutely invincible until...he wasn't.

So, they fought. They fought about his lack of explanation and inability to be upfront with things. They fought about how sudden he had changed almost every aspect of his life. It wasn't like he had gone cold turkey with his finances and social life, but it 'just wasn't like him' to quit the job he had stuck with for so long. It 'just wasn't like him' to _not_ play the part of the perfect husband and son. And he agreed. Armie agreed, because he had never really been that at all. All those decisions and thoughts had been influenced by the people around him; namely his parents, but also Elizabeth with the way she loved to appear to the public eye.

When he told her about starting a podcast, she almost laughed. She _hadn't_ , but Armie could see how incredulous she was with the news. A man like him, one of the _Hammers_ , deviating from the white-collared norm? Yeah, it was laughable, sure. But he stuck with his decision, and ended up being rather successful, because knew how to market himself. He knew how to make connections and get his brand out there to collect interest. Armie knew how to do all of that and, in turn, was able to provide a good source of income. Yet it seemed like what he found joy in was the perfect source of ridicule. His parents had essentially given him the cold shoulder ever since he had quit his corporate job. The stress at home had gotten so high that he had to leave while the paperwork was still being filed. By the time they were legally separated, he already had his things moved into an apartment.  
Now, the only thing that felt right to him was how the shitty weather matched his shitty mood. Cold, damp, and mirthless- the perfect depiction of how pressed around the edges he was.  
A few drops of rain fell onto his hands when he leaned out too far. Disgruntled, he withdrew a bit and wiped them on his clothing. He refolded his arms over the ledge and hung his head. There was so much _noise_ in his mind. There were several thoughts that pulled into several different directions, and he just wanted them to stop. Fuck, he just wanted everything to stop so he could fucking _breathe_ for a moment.

That didn't happen, though. It never did. Life goes on, whether you want it to or not.  
Armie pinched the inner corners of his eyes and knew that the dampness he found wasn't from the rain. He sucked in a deep breath that held the start of a tremor somewhere deep inside of his lungs. His jaw clenched, and he drew his lips back to reveal his teeth gritting together. He felt so incredibly lost, so incredibly torn apart, and fuck, did it hurt to feel so vulnerable.

A quiet sob escaped him as he closed his eyes. The sound of rain eagerly absorbed the noise, so he sobbed again, and again. Hot tears trailed down his cheeks and onto the surface he was propped up against. He was a second away from wailing into the low horizon when he heard it. That low, sweet hum from the level below him.

He wasn't alone, then. A brief rush of shame seized him, but he reminded himself that a layer of brick separated him from his neighbor, and he calmed down. The melody reached out to him, beckoned him with such a tenderness he still didn't understand. It came from a stranger, after all, but then again...were they really strangers? He hardly knew anything about the man below him, but he did know a few things. The man liked to stay outside whenever he was home. He always smoked and sang his time away. Everything else remained a mystery. Armie was more or less okay with that.

There had been a time when his neighbor didn't sing for a period of days, but Armie knew he was outside - the waft of smoke told him as much - and the undisturbed silence had worried him. Something must have happened to carve out that habit for a little while, and he was ashamed to admit that he hadn't done anything about it then. His neighbor started to sing again by the next week, and Armie was set on doing something to show that he had heard and acknowledged him.

He had just gotten out of yet another argument with Elizabeth at the time. His back door had nearly been slammed off its hinges when he came out to the balcony for a smoke. There had been so much anger, so much _heat_ inside of him that emanated from the open wounds she had picked at.  
Then, he heard his neighbor sing.  
It was something about dreaming; something about how things are never as bad as they seem, and he wanted to laugh, but he didn't. He remembered that it was just a song. The longer the man sang, the more apparent it became that Armie was being sung to. Not only had his neighbor broken that vow of silence, but he had done it to- what? Comfort him? It sounded ridiculous- not the singing, but the idea of it. But it was heartwarming.

After the song had ended, he stayed outside for a moment longer before he went back in. Armie knew he had to do something; the urge to show some sort of gratitude, to show some sort of sign, had driven him to think a mile a minute. He wanted to do something, but _what?_ His eyes swept across the disarray of shit he had almost swiped off of the table when he had been so riddled with frustration, and fell onto his notepad and pen.

A note. That's it, he'd leave a note. Maybe it was a stupid idea, but that didn't stop him from scribbling out a _'thank you'_ onto a sheet of paper. He folded it in half and left his room to go down into the lobby. He sought for his neighbor's mail flap and slipped the note inside. He went upstairs feeling like an idiot, but he tried not to linger too much on it. His neighbor had helped, and he wanted to show that he heard it and appreciated it.

And ever since that day, it became a thing that would happen whenever they were both outside.  
Now, as he listened to the same song his neighbor had sang to him the first time, he felt even worse. The mass of emotions and confusion doubled in size and made him choke up. Armie leaned down so his forehead was pressed against the gritty surface of the ledge as he cried as quietly as he could. The rain still poured and provided a good cover, but it seemed to do nothing to dull his neighbor's singing. The melody reached up to him so clearly. It went from his ears right down to his aching heart, almost like the tune could mend it itself. It was too much, but not enough at the same time.

Armie found himself shaking when the song came to an end. He couldn't tell if it was from the cold that had seeped into his bones or the emotional turmoil that refused to leave him alone. Everything went quiet again, save for the sound of the downpour. He shifted his feet, cleared his throat, and straightened back up. He went to wipe his tear-stained cheeks with the back of his arm. His cigarette was all but burnt out now. It sat coldly between his fingers, but he snuffed it out anyways and laid it down on the ledge.

"Take it easy."

The voice interrupted his internalized groveling and almost scared him. He'd heard his neighbor sing, but never talked to him. The minute change of the man's tone was caught and he stared dumbly at the floor, like he could actually see through the level and at the man.  
Armie snapped out of it when he heard the quiet click of the backdoor closing. He was suddenly struck by that overwhelming urge to do something again. He was going to leave a note anyways, but now, message would be different. Armie went inside to scribble on a piece of paper before he left to cram it into his neighbor's mailbox.  
There was a small prickle of unease, but the weight of how grateful he felt overpowered it. Hopefully, he'd see some sign that his neighbor had read his note, because it wasn't just a few words of gratitude this time. No, it was his phone number.

**Author's Note:**

> this entire series will be heavily influenced based off of what all of you folks want to see so be sure to leave a comment on here or send me a message [over on my Tumblr! ](http://peche-keen.tumblr.com/)


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